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Written evidence submitted by the Veterans for Peace UK (INR0067) Introduction to Veterans for Peace UK Veterans for Peace UK (VFP UK) was founded in London in 2011. Veterans For Peace UK is a voluntary and politically independent ex-services organisation of men and women who have served in conflicts from World War 2 through to Afghanistan. As a result of our collective experiences we firmly believe that “War is not the solution to the problems we face in the 21st century”. We are not a pacifist organisation; we accept the inherent right of self-defence in response to an armed attack. We work to influence the foreign and defence policy of the UK, for the larger purpose of world peace. Summary Given that many of the institutions, legal frameworks and skills necessary to increase international understanding and facilitate global co-operation are already in place, our submission focuses on some foreign policy areas where we believe that more effective use could be made of these existing tools. It is vital to strengthen such resources if we are to achieve peaceful co-existence. The starting point for this Review must be a careful re- evaluation of what is needed to provide genuine and sustainable security. The following are our responses to some of the questions listed in your call for evidence. THE PROCESS OF THE INTEGRATED REVIEW The efficacy of the Review’s process 1. ‘What is Security?’ At present there is no established or agreed answer across government departments and policy makers. What does the state want to ‘secure’? From what, from whom and who for? Once these questions are answered we can then determine how we use our resources: human, industrial, technological, financial, to achieve a secure future and incorporate them into developing FCO priorities. 2. State security currently supersedes human security; the security of each individual to liberty, health, wellbeing and a stable existence free of abuse. The current primary focus of security is on risks and threats concerning ‘enemies’. Conflict then becomes inevitable with an upward spiral of increasingly sophisticated weaponry and combat techniques rather than the pursuit of a stable world based on cooperation and support. We cannot change our approach overnight but we can strategically plan for a change from Armed Forces to Peace and Security Forces and to global cooperation. 3. The Review should seek to re-evaluate our influence and role in the world and how other countries see us. Do we achieve our objectives through an aggressive expensive and ineffective military posture or project our influence through diplomacy, conflict resolution and cooperation? We need to understand why many communities think Britain is a threat to them, and what that threat means? 4. The Review should challenge all assumptions made in previous Reviews about what security actually is. Our current policies oblige FCO to focus on conventional perceptions of ‘threat and risk’ at the expense of development and global cooperation which can offer overwhelmingly better value than reliance of military force. STRATEGY IN UK FOREIGN POLICY The priorities for UK foreign policy strategy We focus on four areas of concern: Security as human and planetary wellbeing and how it can be achieved Ethical foreign policy and support for the UN Effective control of the arms trade Nuclear disarmament What is Security? 5. It is generally accepted that the first duty of government is to ensure the security of its people. But what is real human security? The Prime Minister, in his announcement of the Integrated Review 2020, expressed the need to ‘address the risks and threats we face’. And the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee rightly comments in his introduction to this inquiry, ‘COVID-19 … underscores the need for collaboration across borders.’ How we shape our foreign policy depends to a great extent on how we define ‘security’. 6. We believe that ‘security’ should be understood in holistic terms of human and planetary wellbeing. In order to feel safe and secure, people everywhere need the basics of adequate income, food and clean water, housing, health care, education, plus leisure time for rest and relaxation, all underpinned by justice, equality of opportunity, and the rule of law. A comprehensive, visionary set of rights and freedoms was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and supplemented in the UK by the Human Rights Act. 7. These human requirements depend in turn on planetary wellbeing. Only a year ago, the worldwide focus was on the climate crisis and the need for drastic change in human behaviour to prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable. The global focus may have moved to the present COVID-19 pandemic but the threat of climate catastrophe has not disappeared. Both of these crises contribute to another aspect of the threatened apocalypse: the Head of the World Food Programme warns that we are now on the brink of a food pandemic with the prospect of multiple famines of ‘biblical proportions’. 8. The COVID-19 pandemic will gravely exacerbate global poverty. Oxfam estimates that 500 million more people will be thrown into acute need by the virus and the shutdown. The world will never be peaceful while extremes of poverty and inequality are allowed to exist. 9. Following their meeting in London in November 2019, NATO leaders in their final statement said, ‘We work to increase the security of all’. Yet nowhere in that statement was there any reference to the climate crisis – surely the biggest threat of all at that time (pre-COVID-19). 10.Examples of other threats are those posed by cyberwarfare, terrorism, CBW and above all the use, whether by accident or design, of nuclear weapons. How can Security be achieved? 11.Security needs to be sustainable. To build true security in the world is to work internationally to remove the causes of conflict and instability, be they climate chaos with resulting competition for scarce resources and ensuing mass migration, or the various other forms of injustice or manipulation and domination. Failure to understand and treat such problems at source results in violent social explosions. Marginalised and repressed communities will rebel; elites will be vulnerable. The endless build-up of weaponry and perimeter-denial technology may appear to provide short-term advantage but does little for long-term peace and justice. 12.Security for one country at the expense of others is a failed enterprise, morally bankrupt and likely to trigger yet another round of resentment and violence. 13.Military conflict is not only a humanitarian catastrophe causing unfathomable suffering, it is also an environmental catastrophe, with the inbuilt implications for future suffering and political instability which that entails. War and its preparations contribute significantly to climate change. Scientists for Global Responsibility UK estimates that 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions result from military-related activity. This figure covers the whole cycle: extraction of raw materials and manufacture of equipment and weaponry; trials and training with massive fuel use; maintenance of vast numbers of bases and buildings worldwide; use of fuels and explosives in warfare and resulting fires; extensive rebuilding of devastated infrastructure. Yet there is no obligation on countries to count these military-related emissions or include them in climate change reduction targets. If we are serious about planetary security, this is an area which must be examined. Ethical foreign policy and support for the UN 14.To achieve true sustainable security and a peaceful world, a culture of ethical decision-making in foreign policy matters is needed. Britain still has enviable influence in the world – this should not be squandered but could be enhanced by increased integrity in leadership. The establishment of a Minister for Peace and International Co-operation within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would put these priorities at the centre of policy making. 15.In ‘strengthening old relationships and building new ones’, the UK should evaluate relationships and alliances carefully, avoiding dubious relationships based on power, profit and manipulation. In recent decades the UK government has allied itself with such dictators as Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, the Assads, Mubarak and the Saudi rulers. By favouring alliances with states which uphold human rights, we could instead set an example to be proud of. 16.Our government should foster widespread support for the principles of the UN and be guided in all foreign policy matters by the UN Charter and the rule of international law. In this way it can truly be ‘a problem-solving and burden-sharing nation’ with a positive influence for good in the world. 17.Article 51 of the Charter states that member states can only use force when exercising their right to self-defence and “until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”. Otherwise, Article 2 (4) states that all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force. It should be borne in mind that the use of force as a genuine last resort is rarely likely to be necessary if strenuous efforts at diplomacy are pursued, and if ethical policies have already been followed ‘upstream’. 18.As one of only five countries with a permanent seat on the Security Council (the P5), the UK should use its special responsibility to promote necessary reforms, thus helping to build a strong, credible and effective UN: essential if we are to build a safer, fairer and more sustainable world. 19.The P5, along with the 10 other elected member countries of the Security Council can, for instance, vote to authorise the use of force. This democratic system, however, is frequently neutralised by the fact that any permanent member can individually veto any majority decision, thus ensuring that the hegemony of the permanent members continues.

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